The movie that Resident Evil wants to be....

Rating: 9/10 (4 November 2002)

Remember when a horror movie meant you had to be 18 or over to watch it? Remember what it was like to sit in the dark and be genuinely disturbed about what you were watching? I'm not on about the ghastly images of a 13 times resurrected man wearing a William Shatner mask on the prowl yet again, or the cliché filled one liners from a fire ravaged man with appalling tastes in woolly jumpers.
No, try to think past that. Try to remember the days when a horror didn't mean a killer on the prowl in a school full of perfectly formed teenagers, who all look like clones of ever other perfectly formed teenagers from a score of movies and TV shows. Try to remember when you were fighting with your girlfriend over who was going to hide behind whom. She always won of course and while she hid behind you, you had to lift up your arm to block the image for a second, because you knew something terrible was going to happen and part of you wanted to watch, but the sane part of you, the part that gets scared and truly believes in vampires, ghosts and monsters when you are on your own in bed at 2:30 in the morning and you've just heard a noise downstairs; that part of you couldn't watch. The funny thing is, when you gave up and lowered your arm, the demon would choose that moment to pounce and you'd jump out of your seat, almost knocking your girlfriend unconscious.
Remember movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Exorcist and Dawn of the Dead, Movies that were entertaining, but with gritty, disturbing realistic concepts? They had, 'What if' scenarios that were fantasy based on reality and were filmed in such a way that you believed it could happen, or at least you could imagine it happening and picture yourself trying to run around a supermarket trying to survive against hordes of zombies; something which I've always wanted to do actually.
Welcome to 28 Days later, a movie that takes horror back to its roots, whilst maintaining a modern edge that doesn't bow down to the Hollywood mainstream.
Jim wakes up in a hospital 28 days after a deadly virus is let loose on the unsuspecting, and I can imagine quite upset, British public. Society, as Jim knows it has collapsed (`It's worse then that Jim, everyone's dead!') but Jim is so shocked, he has to wander around a deserted London and bump into the reason for societies untimely demise before he finally gets it. The reason being infected humans. Now the infected are not like your classic zombie. They don't wander around like drugged up disabled people moaning, 'Brains.' You can't easily doge a hundred of them, nor can you quickly push triangle, circle R2, R2 on your Playstation to skip a level. These are humans whose blood boils with rage, they are totally consumed with a berserker fury, therefore they are just as quick and as strong as normal humans, but maybe a little more as their rage seems to fuel them. Plus they don't give a s*** about their own safety; they will gladly slice their own arm off if it meant they could get to you. Their aim simply seems to be to kill or infect other humans; that's it! So, the movie is basically about Jim and some people he meets up with trying to survive in a world gone mad, while at the same time it sends a message that humans do not need a rage virus to become inhuman.
The Director, Danny Boyle (Trainspotting) successfully draws the audience in to Jim, and humanities plight. The movie is low budget, but Danny uses all the tricks he can to add to the atmosphere, things like striking, powerful images of deserted cities and motorways, believable characters and some of the most realistic looking dead bodies I've ever seen in a movie. Even the use of digital cameras adds to the gritty realism.
Although not a very original concept, 28 Days Later is far better then any recent similar movies like Resident Evil, although it does borrow quite heavily from Dawn of the Dead, which if you think about it isn't really a bad thing!